Arriving at a consensus is never easy, and seems especially
difficult when deciding how people should interact with conservation forests.
But the strategy of creating buffer zones which simultaneously
promote both development and conservation seems to be increasingly
popular in Thailand.
The buffer zone concept is quite simple: help villagers living around national parks and wildlife sanctuaries to develop their own land sustainably, so that they will not need to rely on the resources provided by the conservation area itself.
Implementing the concept is more difficult. It requires expertise to decide what projects will be most useful in a certain area, money to carry out those projects, and perhaps the rarest commodity cooperation between the various sectors involved: villagers, government officials, local voluntary groups, businesses and non-government organisations (NGOs).
''We often think of rural development projects in terms of land and natural resource use," Apichai Puntasen, an economics lecturer at Thammasat University, told a seminar on buffer zones held in Khon Kaen last week. ''But teamwork may be more important."
Sponsored by the Thailand Environment Institute (TEI), the seminar brought together members from each sector to compare their experiences and study seven buffer zone projects currently taking place in Thailand.
The most well-known buffer zone project is at Huay Kha
Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary. Initiated and funded
by the government, it is more ambitious and centrally
planned than the other half-dozen or so projects
in Thailand it runs along the entire eastern body
of the sanctuary.
The buffer zone project outside Phu Khiow Wildlife Sanctuary in Chaiyaphum province is more typical.
It was initiated by an NGO in this case TEI which
has access to funding by donor agencies and
businesses and which works closely with local officials
and voluntary groups.
Thirty years ago, explained TEI's project coordinator Colin
McQuistan, the area around Phu Khiow was
mostly jungle, including a now-degraded forest reserve
on Phu Kratae, a small hill southeast of the
sanctuary itself which used to provide water, timber,
game and other forest products.
''The forest used to be plentiful, but we lacked experience.
We lived in the
forest and so we didn't appreciate it," said Koon Rucha, the headman
for Nong Kar tambon.
''Phu Kratae is split up among four tambons, so nobody looked after
it."
Now the wildlife sanctuary contains the only forest left
in the area, so local people often enter it
to collect products, hunt wildlife and cut down trees
for both timber and fuel. A key component of the
project is therefore to plant community forests which
can provide these goods.
The land directly adjacent to the sanctuary is owned and
farmed by villagers, so reforestation is
instead being carried out on Phu Kratae. This is quite
different from Huay Kha Khaeng, where the
buffer zone will be in the form of a reforested strip
of land in between the sanctuary and local
villages a stricter interpretation of the buffer
zone concept which will require some resettlement.
Apichai noted several key factors to developing buffer zone projects, including the cooperation of state officials and the participation of local people's organisations, particularly those of schools and housewives.
At Phu Khiow, for instance, forestry officials are eager to relieve the pressure on the wildlife sanctuary and so have encouraged the reforestation of Phu Kratae, a national forest reserve. In return, however, the villagers must feel confident that they will be able to benefit from the rehabilitation.
Meanwhile, it is the local womens' groups which have done most of the planting work, while teachers have taken it on themselves to educate children about the importance of preserving the forest.
There have been plenty of obstacles. ''Lecturing the kids
didn't work," noted Pratan Sawkatok, a
teacher with the Ban Chanuan Green Schools project, ''So
we actually took them to the forest and
taught them on-site. That proved much more effective,
although we now face some budgetary problems."
Indeed, Apichai observed that taking kids to experience
the forest first-hand is a key part of
environmental education programmes, as are theatre projects,
which are also being used at Phu Kratae.
''Once the students performed the play [with environmental
themes], they would go home and forbid
their fathers from hunting in the forest," said Somsunt
Panakyo, the school principal at Ban Nong Kar.
Apichai pointed out that difficulties also arise if communities are divided. But at Phu Kratae, both kamnan Koon and ajaan Somsunt explained, the initial key to overcoming divisions among the different tambons was to arrange sporting events between the different villages.
Somsunt is confident the project has been successful. ''In
talking with the community, we have found
that poaching has decreased 100 per cent," he said.
McQuistan is more cautious. ''There are fewer arrests by
the forestry department [RFD] but we're not
sure if that's because there has been less illegal activity
or if the RFD is just being more friendly
now," he explained.
In fact, many questions remain unanswered, in particular
whether all the hard work and cooperation
will continue once TEI and its funding leaves after a
few years.
And much work remains. Fire which spread from farmland being burned off wiped out about 70 rai of newly planted forest last year, noted McQuistan, so fire breaks are being set up.
In the long run, however, farmers need to be educated as
to more sustainable practices, including more
judicious use of pesticides and other chemical inputs,
which can harm both humans and wildlife in the
area.
In general, said Apichai, buffer zone projects will have
difficulty succeeding if communities are very
poor or if, as in some areas around Khao Yai National
Park, villagers do not have forests of their own
which can be replanted.
In such cases, the only option is to replant the park's
forests, and villagers cannot be sure they
will have access to them afterwards.
Finally, there is no consensus as to whether buffer zones
or other community forest projects can be
used for villagers living within conservation areas. The
Forestry Department and some environmentalists would
prefer to see them resettled.
Nevertheless, by turning conservation areas from a handicap
for local communities into a magnet for
sustainable development, buffer zones just may succeed
where past efforts have failed.